Author
Topic: Snow Storm 1/26 (Read 1875 times)

We have winter storm warnings for Philadelphia and through the Northeast.Philadelphia seems to be the starting point of the storm, as you travel every 30 miles up I-95 from philly add 6" of snow depth, as you get up to Boston you could be looking at 2 1/2 feet of snow by the time this is all over.so for Philly itself, the snow forecast have been changing, the weather models are all over the place as of MidnightThe NAM has us at around 8"The GFS has us at 10"The EURO has us at 9"

In my winter weather snow forecast for the season I predicted this snowstorm back in November for January, I'll stick to around my forecast of 5-10" and call it 7-12" for this storm as of this Monday morning.

Strangest storm I've ever seen. Not often a clipper system morphs into a Nor'easter like this. No wonder the models aren't in agreement. Not much of a precedent to draw from. Let's hope the storm bombs out sooner rather than later and stays a little further west so we can catch a bigger piece of the bullseye.

It looks like the opposite is happening, the storm is developing to far off shore, bringing the totals way down for the Philly area, every philly weather station completely missed this one. we would be lucky to get a few more inches out of this storm.New storm totals may be under a few inches at best.

I'm not down on all of the local meteorologists like most of the people around here who are calling for the heads of anyone who predicted a big storm. I know how incredibly difficult it is to accurately predict the weather, let alone predict abnormalities in the weather, which is what this storm was....an abnormality.

Seems to happen every 12 years or so. I remember this exact scenario as a kid back around 1991 or so. Forecast was for 8"-12" of "blowing and drifting of snow" (those words are seared into my brain as some sort of metaphor for disappointment) well into the evening hours, but every time I looked out the window, there was nothing. Woke up the next morning with all the excitement and anticipation of a winter wonderland and was greeted with nothing more than a dusting of flurries. All I could ask myself as I was solemnly getting ready for school was "How could everyone have been so wrong?" From what I understand, there was a very similar event that occurred again in 2003, but I don't remember that one.

My question is, when there seems to be quite a bit of doubt about a storms potential, why don't mets just bite the proverbial bullet and forecast something like 2"-16". Make it well known to the public that you really don't know what the storm is going to do, that the models aren't in complete agreement and there is too much variability to really try to pinpoint and exact snowfall total?

My question is, when there seems to be quite a bit of doubt about a storms potential, why don't mets just bite the proverbial bullet and forecast something like 2"-16". Make it well known to the public that you really don't know what the storm is going to do, that the models aren't in complete agreement and there is too much variability to really try to pinpoint and exact snowfall total?

Nice post Xyonist.One reason is that the US government among others have spent millions upon millions $$ in computers technology for weather prediction only, Todays Mets have been taught to rely on these computer models without hesitation even if their experience tells them differently about a storm, Why do you think every channel within each city's forecast looks identical to each other.

Look at Philly for instance, 3,6,10,29 and even the weather channel all had identical forecast, I even heard one Meteorologist in Philly mention that theyare not sure that the storm will be as strong as everyone says and yet still posted what every other station posted(totals wise that is) but went on to say he was skeptical about the totals but had to follow the computer models.

I myself use the computer models but I don't rely on them, I use them as a starting point, then use my experience and make judgment calls, this is one of the reasons why when all our local stations give their winter snow forecast they are all basically the same and I have been different and CORRECT in the past 5 years on winter snow forecast.

Forecasting snow amounts hours if not days ahead of time is not easy at all, you just need to look at the liquid a storm holds and forecast accordingly, and that changes 4 times a day.